PRESERVATION; King or Queen for a Day? Have We Got a Castle for You

By NATE SCHWEBER

Published: June 3, 2007

IT'S not easy hiding a castle here, let alone more than 10 acres with a view of the Manhattan skyline, but June Anderson never knew that one of New Jersey's last Gilded Age estates was on a mountaintop near her home until Essex County bought it this spring.

''It is just so nice to see such a treasure being preserved for the county and its residents,'' Ms. Anderson, who lives in nearby Cedar Grove, said on a recent Friday morning while strolling the luscious grounds around Kip's Castle atop First Mountain on the Verona-Montclair border.

Mrs. Anderson was one of thousands at a ceremony on March 1 celebrating the county's purchase of Kip's Castle. When that $5.6 million deal closed, the property opened to the public, not just the textile magnate, the socialites, the self-help guru and his followers, and the law firm that occupied the four-story mansion for more than a century.

County officials said people could rent the 30-room medieval-style stone mansion for parties, weddings and other events in early 2008, after interior renovations are completed.

The grounds, two acres of which lie in Montclair, the rest in Verona, are already open to the public, and castle tours can be scheduled by calling the county Parks Department.

Kip's Castle, like Lambert Castle overlooking Paterson on Garret Mountain, is one of the state's last estates that dates to America's Gilded Age, said Frank Gerard Godlewski, 48, a historian based in Montclair.

Frederic E. Kip, a textile tycoon, bought the mountaintop property in 1902, and his wife, Charlotte Kip, designed the mansion, which took three years to build out of local trap rock and sandstone, Mr. Godlewski said.

Like other rich men of his era, Mr. Kip chose the location because it overlooked the beauty of the Hudson River and the burgeoning Manhattan skyline. ''The privilege of living on First Mountain was basically being witness to the building of the new world,'' Mr. Godlewski said.

Unlike other grand mansions of its time, Kip's Castle was intended for family use only, Mr. Godlewski said. Though the mansion showcases turrets, several octagon-shaped rooms with domed ceilings, six fireplaces, ornate tile work and escutcheons, there is no ballroom, nor is there a giant dining hall for entertaining.

In fact, the castle's most ostentatious feature is its sweeping vista of green trees dotted with buildings spreading out, with the Newark, Jersey City and Manhattan skylines in the distance.

''The view was empowering; it made you think big,'' said Ronald L. Tobia, 62, who was a co-owner of the castle from 1984 through 2007 when it served as the law offices of Schwartz, Tobia and Stanziale.

For almost a half-century after the Kip family moved out in 1926, the mansion was home to two families who often used the grounds for parties.

In the 1970s, the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh purchased the castle as headquarters for his followers, who wore bright orange clothing. He was deported in 1985 after pleading guilty to immigration law violations. Five years after his death in 1990, two of his followers were convicted of plotting to kill a United States attorney in Oregon.

Mr. Rajneesh's followers had coated the mansion's interior with white paint, which Schwartz, Tobia and Stanziale scraped away, earning a plaque from the New Jersey Historic Trust for restoration.

Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., the Essex County executive, who coordinated the purchase by securing matching funds from the county's Open Space Trust Fund and the state's Green Acres Program, said the castle would be restored to its heyday.

''This is a treasure, not for our lifetime but for future generations,'' he said. ''And if you can't preserve something like this, why preserve anything?''

Photos: MOUNTAINTOP -- Kip's Castle and Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., the Essex County executive, who aided the purchase by securing money. (Photographs by Alan Zale for The New York Times)